St. Patrick Reliquary Cross
June 2021 - August 2021
A priest friend commissioned a reliquary cross which could house both a beautiful wooden corpus of Our Lord and a first-class relic of St. Patrick. This inspired a Celtic-style cross, with symbols of St. Patrick and the Holy Trinity. At the feet of Jesus is St. Patrick with his hand raised in blessing and dressed in the vestments of his bishopric. The relic itself sits in the middle of a three leaf clover, that famous image of St. Patrick, who used the clover to teach the pagans about the Holy Trinity. In the middle of the cross and situated just behind the head of Our Lord is the triquetra, or Trinity knot, another Celtic symbol for the Trinity.
On the other three points of the cross are three symbols associated with St. Patrick. Snakes, which St. Patrick famously cast out of Ireland, symbolize Patrick’s driving out of the demons of druidism. The bishop’s crook is another symbol of Patrick’s office as shepherd of his people. At the top of the cross is the Tree of Life, harkening to the Fall of Adam and Eve and Jesus’ redemption of that fall through his death on the Cross, the new Tree of Life.
Watch how Andrew took his design from paper to wood.